ABSTRACT
A new Mechanistic-Empirical (M-E) approach is under development to predict the structural degradation of road structures as a function of time. The aim is that the method will become one of the backbones in a new pavement asset management system. The calculation scheme is based two main steps; i) a response calculation step for the different traffic loads applied taking into account the ambient climate and ii) a performance prediction step where pavement degradation is predicted in time steps and thereafter accumulated over the entire design period of the pavement structure. The paper describes the approach briefly and is thereafter demonstrated by a calculation of the degradation of an arterial road in Southern Sweden and compared with measurements from the Swedish Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) database. The arterial road had reached the critical 15 mm rut after 18 years in operation. The analysis shows that the rutting development can be simulated adequately although the calculations show slower rate than the measurements towards the end of the simulated period.
